Part One

Scan the historical images and sounds of the civil rights movement and you will SEE black women and little girls everywhere: from the protesters being hosed down, to the sit-ins and demonstrations by students at historically black colleges, to the teenagers of Little Rock Nine, to the moving speeches at major political conventions, to the protest songs that provided the inspiration and soundtrack of the movement. Now we ask ourselves: what was the word work that these women were doing? What do their rhetorics look like and do? There are two parts to your assignment.

We will spend our time in this unit with Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer. Before we look to these women however, let's contextualize this unit by understanding the violence they faced (especially important for understanding Fannie Lou Hamer's life and world). Please read the essay, "A Forgotten Battleground: Women’s Bodies and the Civil Rights Movement" by Jamia Wilson at Women Under Siege. In writing, explain: how you would describe the context of violence against black women in the Civil Rights Movement?

Please read the excerpt from Barbara Ransby's Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Ransby’s book is not about rhetoric but you have the tools now to deduce Baker’s word-work from the accounts that you will be given about her. In writing, explain: how you would describe Baker's rhetoric? What difference does she make? What difference does her rhetoric make?

You will be provided with many more speeches and texts in this unit as optional readings. Please at least watch the Eyes on the Prize series if you are unfamiliar with the history of the Civil Rights Movement, starting with.

Part Two

We will be looking more closely at one of Hamer's speeches: "Until I am Free You are Not Free Either." We will read Hamer's speech in print. Please start by watching the videos below. In writing, choose one line and explain why that line (from any of the youtube clips above) impacts you and be ready to share what you wrote in class.

An excerpt from the ACLU:​Ask an elementary school student who the heroes of the civil rights movement are and you are certain to hear Martin Luther King and likely to hear names like Ralph Abernathy and Medgar Evers. Although it is true that each of those men fully deserves the acclaim he receives... it is also true that the success of the civil rights movement hinged also on the selfless dedication and hard work of a host of women whose names are considerably less familiar today.The truth is, long before a somewhat reluctant Martin Luther King was enlisted to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association which called for a boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system, Jo Ann Robinson, the head of the Women's Political Council (WPC) and its other members had been advocating for a boycott protesting the segregation of buses. Robinson, a professor at the historically black Alabama State College in Montgomery, became an activist after being verbally attacked by a white bus driver in 1949. After becoming president of the WPC, the organization focused on the abuses and degradation endured by black bus riders on a daily basis. Faced with the opportunity to organize around Rosa Parks' arrest, the WPC immediately swung into action, calling for a bus boycott. And for the year that the boycott continued, the Women's Political Council did the difficult and sometimes dangerous work of organizing alternate means of transportation for Montgomery's black workers.

Although it is true that the most famous person associated with the Montgomery boycott was a woman, even the way that Rosa Parks' story is told understates her actual role. Parks is often depicted as just a tired seamstress refusing to give up her seat to a white man. She was in fact a committed long-time advocate for racial justice, having been involved in a range of efforts from working to assist the Scottsboro Boys in 1932 and serving as an officer in the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to attending the Highlander Folk School, an educational center for worker's rights and racial equality in Tennessee...

[I]t is important to continue honoring Dr. Martin Luther King but it is also important to honor courageous, dedicated women like Fannie Lou Hamer, the vice chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party who was arrested and beaten nearly to death by police while conducting a literacy campaign, or Dorothy Height, whose lifelong career as a civil rights activist started in 1937, when she worked for the National Council of Negro Women of which she ultimately became the president. Throughout her life, Height fought for the rights of women and people of color in education and employment.​It is vital that the whole story of the civil rights movement be told in a way that includes everyone who contributed in order to understand how we achieved the substantial progress we have witnessed over the past 60 years...

After watching the relatively short videos above, you will also spend some time with another speech that Hamer gave. Print out Hamer's speech, "Until I Am Free, You Are Not Free Either" and fully annotate it (whatever notes come to your head, write them on the text ... or on the PDF and then email me your PDF comments if you do this work digitally). You will be submitting your annotations only in class. Feel free to read the speech while Hamer's voice plays in the background (see video at the left).